The State Hermitage, together with the City Museums of Pavia, is holding the largest retrospective of Italian painting of the nineteenth century, including more than seventy works
State Hermitage Museum, 19 November 2011 - 22 January 2012
Hall of arms Winter Palace
Within the framework of the Year of Italy in Russia and Russia in Italy in the Armorial Hall of the Winter Palace, the exhibition “Italian painting XIX century. From neoclassicism to symbolism ”, organized by the State Hermitage Museum in cooperation with the City Museums of Pavia. The exposition is the largest retrospective of Italian painting of the century before last and includes more than seventy works, half of which come from the collection of the 19th century Art Gallery of the Civic Museums of Pavia. In addition, the exhibition includes works from the Galleries of Contemporary Art in Florence, Milan, Turin, Genoa. The significance of the exhibition is difficult to overestimate, since the period under review is practically unknown to the Russian viewer (in the Hermitage collection there are just over sixty paintings by Italian artists Ottocento).
Using the best examples of 19th century painting as an example, the exhibition demonstrates the whole range of styles and trends in which Italian artists worked: classicism, romanticism, historicism, macchiaioli, symbolism.
The main features of Italian classicism were laid in the work of Antonio Canova. The Lombard artist Andrea Appiani turned to the type of sublime idyllic paintings on mythological themes, an example of which is the painting "Juno Dressed by the Graces". The same antique canon of sublime harmony is in the canvases "Paris" and "Hebe" by Gaspare Landi. The heroic branch of neoclassicism is represented by the painting “Death of Caesar” by Vincenzo Camuccini, which was popular at the time.
The appeal to episodes and heroes of national history, mostly already described in literature, is characteristic of most of the 19th century painting, starting with romanticism. The main artist of this direction is Francesco Hayez. In the painting "Reconciliation of Otto II with his mother, Adelaide of Burgundy," he reproduced a significant, but little-known event in Italian medieval history. In "Venus Playing with Doves" he embodied the features of the famous ballerina Carlotta Chabert, in "Secret Denunciation" he showed a Venetian, beautiful and cruel.
Romantic artists willingly portrayed outstanding people, rebellious heroes in moments of glory or fall. Examples of such works: "Galileo before the court of the Inquisition" by Cristiano Banti, "Christopher Columbus on his return from America (Christopher Columbus in chains)" by Lorenzo Delleani, "Lord Byron on the Greek shores" by Giacomo Trecourt.
Romantics are reviving interest in the "younger" genres of painting - depicting the interiors of buildings and city views (lead). In the painting “Church of Santa Maria della Salute in Venice”, Ippolito Caffi experiments with visual perception and light effects.
The search for romantics continued in the 1860s by the Tuscan macchiaioli: Giovanni Fattori, Silvestro Lega, Telemaco Signorini, Giuseppe Abbati, Odorado Borrani, Vincenzo Cabianca. The artists proposed a stylistic manner, replacing the traditional chiaroscuro with a contrasting combination of spots ("macchia"). Macchiaioli presented genre scenes in the new technique everyday life: "Singing Stornello" and "The Betrothed, or Bride and Groom" by Silvestro Legi, "Date in the Woods" by Telemaco Signorini. The landscape in the paintings "Rotunda of the Palmieri Baths" by Giovanni Fattori and "View of Castiglioncello" by Giuseppe Abbati is interesting because for its creation the artists worked in the open air.
The tendencies of symbolism are clearly expressed in Giorgio Kinerk's triptych The Mystery of Man: the artist avoids a clear characterization of the characters, preferring to fascinate the viewer with esoteric symbols and a general magnetic atmosphere.
In the last decades of the 19th century, European artists experimented with new means of expression. In Italy, Angelo Morbelli develops the technique of a separate brushstroke (divisionism), an example of which is the painting on the social theme "Over 80 Centesimo!" A divisionist was also Giuseppe Pelizza da Volpedo, who symbolically embodied the ideals of high humanism in the painting "Round Dance".
Exhibition “Italian Painting of the 19th Century. From Neoclassicism to Symbolism ”is a response to the large exhibition opened in March 2011 in Castello Visconteo“ Leonardeschi from Fopp to Giampetrino: Paintings from the Hermitage and the Pavia City Museums ”, which featured twenty-two paintings from the Hermitage collection.
The curator of the exhibition from the side of the State Hermitage is Natalya Borisovna Demina, researcher in the Department of Western European Fine Arts, from the side of the City Museums of Pavia - Suzanne Zatti, director of the City Museums of Pavia.
For the opening of the exhibition, a scientific catalog was published in Russian and Italian (Skira publishing house, Milan - Geneva), with articles by Fernando Mazzocchi, professor of the University of Milan, Francesca Porreco, curator of the Pavia City Museums and Susanna Zatti.
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Italy is a country that has always been famous for its artists. The great masters who once lived in Italy glorified art throughout the world. We can say for sure that if it were not for Italian artists, sculptors and architects, the world today looked completely different. The most significant in Italian art, of course, is considered. Italy in the era of the Renaissance or Renaissance reached an unprecedented rise and flowering. Talented artists, sculptors, inventors, real geniuses who appeared in those days are still known to every schoolchild. Their art, creativity, ideas, developments are considered classics today, the core on which world art and culture are built.
One of the most famous geniuses of the Italian Renaissance is, of course, the great Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519). Da Vinci was so gifted that he achieved great success in many areas of activity, including fine artsah and science. Another famous artistwho is a recognized master is Sandro Botticelli (1445-1510). Botticelli's paintings are a real gift to humanity. Today, its densest are in the most famous museums in the world and are truly priceless. No less famous than Leonardo da Vinci and Botticelli is Raphael Santi (1483-1520), who lived for 38 years, and during this time managed to create a whole layer of stunning painting, which became one of the brightest examples of the Early Renaissance. Another great genius of the Italian Renaissance is undoubtedly Michelangelo Buonarotti (1475-1564). In addition to painting, Michelangelo was engaged in sculpture, architecture and poetry, and achieved great results in these forms of art. Michelangelo's statue called "David" is considered an unsurpassed masterpiece, an example of the highest achievement of the art of sculpture.
In addition to the artists mentioned above, the greatest artists of the Renaissance Italy were such masters as Antonello da Messina, Giovanni Bellini, Giorgione, Titian, Paolo Veronese, Jacopo Tintoretto, Domenico Fetti, Bernardo Strozzi, Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, Francesco Guardi and others ... They were all prime examples of the delightful Venetian school of painting. The Florentine school of Italian painting includes such artists as: Masaccio, Andrea del Verrocchio, Paolo Uccello, Andrea del Castagno, Benozzo Gozzoli, Sandro Botticelli, Fra Angelico, Filippo Lippi, Piero di Cosimo, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelandomé del Sarto.
To list all the artists who worked during the Renaissance, as well as during the late Renaissance, and centuries later, who became known throughout the world and glorified the art of painting, developed the basic principles and laws that underlie all types and genres of fine arts, perhaps you will need to write several volumes, but this list is enough to understand that the Great Italian artists are the very art that we know, that we love and that we will appreciate forever!
Paintings by great Italian artists
Andrea Mantegna - Fresco in the Chamber degli Sposi
Giorgione - Three Philosophers
Leonardo da Vinci - Mona Lisa
Renaissance (Renaissance). Italy. XV-XVI centuries. Early capitalism. The country is ruled by wealthy bankers. They are interested in art and science.
The rich and influential gather the talented and wise around them. Poets, philosophers, painters and sculptors have daily conversations with their patrons. For a moment it seemed that people were ruled by sages, as Plato wanted.
They remembered the ancient Romans and Greeks. They also built a society of free citizens, where the main value is a person (not counting slaves, of course).
Renaissance is not just copying the art of ancient civilizations. This is confusion. Mythology and Christianity. Realism of nature and soulfulness of images. Physical and spiritual beauty.
It was just a flash. Period High Renaissance - this is about 30 years! From the 1490s to 1527 Since the beginning of the flowering of creativity Leonardo. Before the sack of Rome.
The mirage of an ideal world quickly faded. Italy turned out to be too fragile. She was soon enslaved by another dictator.
However, these 30 years have determined the main features of European painting for 500 years ahead! Up to .
Realism of the image. Anthropocentrism (when the center of the world is Man). Linear perspective. Oil paints... Portrait. Scenery…
Incredibly, in these 30 years several brilliant masters worked at once. At other times, they are born one in 1000 years.
Leonardo, Michelangelo, Raphael and Titian are the titans of the Renaissance. But one cannot fail to mention their two predecessors: Giotto and Masaccio. Without which there would be no Renaissance.
1. Giotto (1267-1337)
Paolo Uccello. Giotto da Bondogni. Fragment of the painting "Five Masters of the Florentine Renaissance". The beginning of the 16th century. ... XIV century. Proto-Renaissance. Its main character is Giotto. This is a master who single-handedly revolutionized art. 200 years before the High Renaissance. If it were not for him, the era that mankind is so proud of would hardly have come.
Before Giotto, there were icons and frescoes. They were created according to the Byzantine canons. Faces instead of faces. Flat figures. Non-compliance with proportions. Instead of a landscape - a gold background. As, for example, in this icon.
Guido da Siena. Adoration of the Magi. 1275-1280 Altenburg, Lindenau Museum, Germany. And suddenly Giotto's frescoes appear. They have three-dimensional figures. The faces of noble people. Old and young. Sad. Sorrowful. Surprised. Various.
Frescoes by Giotto in the Church of Scrovegni in Padua (1302-1305). Left: Lamentation over Christ. Middle: Kiss of Judas (detail). Right: Annunciation to Saint Anna (Mother Mary), detail.
Giotto's main creation is his cycle of frescoes in the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua. When this church opened to parishioners, crowds of people flooded into it. They had never seen anything like this.
After all, Giotto did something unheard of. He translated biblical stories into simple, understandable language. And they have become much more accessible to ordinary people.
Giotto. Adoration of the Magi. 1303-1305 Fresco in the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua, Italy. This is what will be characteristic of many masters of the Renaissance. Laconic images. Lively emotions of characters. Realism.
Read more about the frescoes of the master in the article.
Giotto was admired. But his innovation was not developed further. The fashion for international gothic came to Italy.
Only 100 years later will a worthy successor of Giotto appear.
2. Masaccio (1401-1428)
Masaccio. Self-portrait (fragment of the fresco "St. Peter in the pulpit"). 1425-1427 Brancacci Chapel in the Church of Santa Maria del Carmine, Florence, Italy. Early 15th century. The so-called Early Renaissance. Another innovator enters the scene.
Masaccio was the first artist to use linear perspective. It was designed by his friend, the architect Brunelleschi. Now the depicted world has become similar to the real one. Toy architecture is a thing of the past.
Masaccio. Saint Peter heals with his shadow. 1425-1427 Brancacci Chapel in the Church of Santa Maria del Carmine, Florence, Italy. He adopted Giotto's realism. However, unlike his predecessor, he already knew anatomy well.
Instead of Giotto's lumpy characters, they are beautifully built people. Just like the ancient Greeks.
Masaccio. Baptism of the neophytes. 1426-1427 Brancacci Chapel, Church of Santa Maria del Carmine in Florence, Italy. 
Masaccio. Expulsion from Paradise. 1426-1427 Fresco in Brancacci Chapel, Church of Santa Maria del Carmine, Florence, Italy. Masaccio lived short life... He died, like his father, unexpectedly. At 27 years old.
However, he had many followers. Masters of the next generations went to the Brancacci Chapel to learn from his frescoes.
So Masaccio's innovation was taken up by all the great artists of the High Renaissance.
3. Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519)
Leonardo da Vinci. Self-portrait. 1512 Royal Library in Turin, Italy. Leonardo da Vinci is one of the titans of the Renaissance. He influenced the development of painting in a colossal way.
It was da Vinci who raised the status of the artist himself. Thanks to him, representatives of this profession are no longer just artisans. These are creators and aristocrats of the spirit.
Leonardo made a breakthrough primarily in portraiture.
He believed that nothing should distract from the main image. The gaze should not wander from one detail to another. This is how his famous portraits appeared. Laconic. Harmonious.
Leonardo da Vinci. Lady with an ermine. 1489-1490 Chertoryski Museum, Krakow. The main innovation of Leonardo is that he found a way to make the images ... alive.
Before him, the characters in the portraits looked like mannequins. The lines were sharp. All details are carefully traced. The painted drawing could never be alive.
Leonardo invented the sfumato method. He shaded the lines. Made the transition from light to shadow very soft. His characters seem to be covered with a barely perceptible haze. The characters came to life.
... 1503-1519 Louvre, Paris. Sfumato will enter the active vocabulary of all the great artists of the future.
It is often believed that Leonardo, of course, is a genius, but did not know how to bring anything to the end. And often did not finish painting. And many of his projects remained on paper (by the way, in 24 volumes). In general, he was thrown into medicine, then into music. Even the art of serving at one time was fond of.
However, think for yourself. 19 paintings - and he - greatest artist of all times and peoples. And someone is not even close in greatness, while having written 6,000 paintings in a lifetime. Obviously, who has higher efficiency.
Read about the most famous painting of the master in the article.
4. Michelangelo (1475-1564)
Daniele da Volterra. Michelangelo (detail). 1544 Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Michelangelo considered himself a sculptor. But he was a versatile master. Like his other colleagues of the Renaissance. Therefore, his pictorial heritage is no less grandiose.
He is recognizable primarily by his physically developed characters. He portrayed a perfect person, in whom physical beauty means spiritual beauty.
Therefore, all his characters are so muscular and tough. Even women and old people.
Michelangelo. Fragments of the Last Judgment fresco in the Sistine Chapel, Vatican.
Michelangelo often painted the character naked. And then he finished painting on top of the clothes. So that the body is as prominent as possible.
He painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel alone. Although these are several hundred figures! He didn't even let anyone rub the paint. Yes, he was unsociable. He had a cool and quarrelsome character. But most of all he was dissatisfied with ... himself.
Michelangelo. Fragment of the fresco "Creation of Adam". 1511 Sistine Chapel, Vatican. Michelangelo lived a long life. Survived the extinction of the Renaissance. It was a personal tragedy for him. His later works are full of sorrow and sorrow.
In general, Michelangelo's creative path is unique. His early work is a glorification of the human hero. Free and courageous. In the best traditions Ancient Greece... Like his David.
IN last years life is tragic images. Intentionally rough hewn stone. As if before us are monuments to the victims of fascism of the 20th century. Look at his "Pieta".
Sculptures by Michelangelo at the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence. Left: David. 1504 Right: Pieta of Palestrina. 1555 g.
How is this possible? One artist in one of his life went through all the stages of art from the Renaissance to the XX century. What should the next generations do? Go your own way. Realizing that the bar has been set very high.
5. Raphael (1483-1520)
... 1506 Uffizi Gallery, Florence, Italy. Raphael was never forgotten. His genius was always recognized: both during life and after death.
His characters are endowed with sensual, lyrical beauty. It is he who is rightfully considered the most beautiful female imagesever created. External beauty reflects the spiritual beauty of the heroines. Their meekness. Their sacrifice.
Raphael. ... 1513 Old Masters Gallery, Dresden, Germany. Fyodor Dostoevsky said the famous words "Beauty will save the world" This was his favorite painting.
Sensual imagery is not Raphael's only strength, however. He very carefully thought out the composition of his paintings. He was a consummate architect in painting. And he always found the simplest and most harmonious solution in the organization of space. It seems that it cannot be otherwise.
Raphael. School of Athens. 1509-1511 Fresco in the stanzas of the Apostolic Palace, Vatican. Raphael lived only 37 years old. He died suddenly. From caught cold and medical error. But his legacy is hard to overestimate. Many artists idolized this master. And they multiplied his sensual images in thousands of their paintings ..
Titian was a consummate colorist. He also experimented a lot with composition. In general, he was a daring innovator.
For such brightness of talent everyone loved him. Called “the king of painters and painter of kings”.
Speaking of Titian, I want to put an exclamation mark after each sentence. After all, it was he who brought dynamics to painting. Pathos. Enthusiasm. Bright coloring. Shining colors.
Titian. Ascension of Mary. 1515-1518 Church of Santa Maria Gloriosi dei Frari, Venice. Towards the end of his life, he developed an unusual writing technique. The strokes are fast and thick. He applied the paint with a brush, then with his fingers. From this - the images are even more alive, breathing. And the plots are even more dynamic and dramatic.
Titian. Tarquinius and Lucretia. 1571 Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, England. Does it remind you of anything? Of course, this is a technique. And the technique of artists of the XIX century: Barbizonians and. Titian, like Michelangelo, will go through 500 years of painting in one of his life. That's why he is a genius.
Read about the famous masterpiece of the master in the article.
Renaissance artists are masters of great knowledge. There was a lot to learn to leave such a legacy. In the field of history, astrology, physics, and so on.
Therefore, each of their images makes us think. Why is it depicted? What is the encrypted message here?
They were almost never wrong. Because they thoroughly thought out their future work. We used all the baggage of our knowledge.
They were more than artists. They were philosophers. They explained the world to us through painting.
That is why we will always be deeply interested in them.
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Until the 13th century, Byzantine tradition prevailed in Italy, hostile to any free development or individual understanding. It was only during the 13th century that the petrified scheme of the image was revived in the work of some great artists, primarily Florence.
A new, reality-oriented perception of color harmony and a deeper expression of feelings appears. Among the artists of the 13-14 centuries, such as Ercole de Roberti, Francesco Francia, Jacopo de Barbari can be voiced.
Iatlian living 15th - 16th centuries
During this period, such a style of painting as Mannerism was widespread. It is characterized by a departure from the unity and harmony of man with nature, everything material and spiritual, this is how he stands in opposition to the Renaissance.
The big center of painting is Venice. Titian's contribution largely determined 16th century Venetian painting, both in the artist's artistic achievement and in his productivity. He was equally proficient in all genres, shone in religious, mythological and allegorical compositions, created numerous breathtaking portraits. Titian followed the stylistic directions of his time and in turn influenced them.
Veronese and Tintoretto - in contrast to these two artists, the duality of Venetian painting of the mid-16th century is revealed, the calm manifestation of the beauty of earthly existence at the end of the Renaissance in Veronese, the assertive movement and extreme otherworldlyness, and in some cases also the exquisite temptation of a secular nature, in the work of Tintoretto. In Veronese's paintings, one does not feel any problems of that time, he writes everything as if it could not be otherwise, as if life is beautiful the way it is. The scenes depicted in his paintings lead a "real" existence that does not allow for any doubts.
Quite differently for Tintoretto, everything he writes is filled with intense action, dramatically mobile. Nothing is immutable for him, things have many sides and can manifest themselves in different ways. The contrast between deeply religious and secular-piquant, at least elegant, paintings, as evidenced by his two creations "The Salvation of Arsinoe" and "The Struggle of the Archangel Michael with Satan", draws our attention to the peculiarity of mannerism inherent not only to the Venetian Tintoretto, but also seen by us from the tradition of Correggio Parmigianino.
17th century Italian painting
This century has been marked as a time of growing Catholicism, church consolidation. The heyday of painting in Italy was associated, as in previous centuries, with the division into separate local schools, which was a consequence of the political situation in this country. The Italian Renaissance was understood as the starting point of a far-reaching quest. The artists of the Roman and Bolognese schools can be distinguished. These are Carlo Dolci from Florence, Procaccini, Nuvolone and Pagani from Milan, Alessandro Turchi, Pietro Negri and Andrea Celesti from Venice, Ruoppolo and Luca Giordano from Naples. The Roman school shines with a whole series of paintings to the parables of the New Testament by Domenico Fetti, learned from the examples of Caravaggio and Rubens.
Andrea Sacchi, a student of Francesco Albani, represents a distinctly classical movement in Roman painting. Classicism, as a movement opposite to the Baroque, has always existed in Italy and in France, but had different weight in these countries. This direction is represented by Carlo Maratto, a pupil of Sacchi. One of the main representatives of the classicist trend was Domenichino, who studied under Denis Calvart and Caracci in Bologna.
Pier Francesco Mola, under the influence of Guercino, was much more baroque, stronger in the interpretation of light and shadow, in the transmission of a brownish-warm tone. He was also influenced by Caravaggio.
In the 17th century, the expressively developed forms of the Baroque, with its inherent sense of "naturalness" and in the depiction of miracles and visions, staged, however, theatrically, erased the boundaries between reality and illusion.
Realism and classicism-tendencies are characteristic of this era, regardless of whether they are compared to the Baroque or perceived as components of this style. Salvator Rosa from Naples was a very influential landscape painter. His works were studied by Alessandro Magnasco, Marco Ricci, the Frenchman Claude-Joseph Vernet.
Italian painting made a powerful impression on the whole of Europe, but Italy, in turn, was not free from the opposite influence of the masters of the North. An example of following the genus of Wauverman's painting, but with an individually developed and easily recognizable handwriting, is Michelangelo Cherkvocci with his "Robbery after the Battle". He developed as an artist in Rome under the influence of the Haarlem-born and Rome-based Peter van Lahr.
If Venetian painting of the 17th century gives the impression of an intermezzo, an interlude between the great past of the 15th and 16th centuries and the upcoming heyday in the 18th century, in the person of Bernardo Strozzi, Genoese painting has a top-ranked artist who brought essential accents to the picture of Baroque painting in Italy.
18th century Italian painting
As in previous centuries, individual schools of Italian painting had their own face in the 18th century, although the number of really significant centers declined. Venice and Rome were a great hotbed for the development of art in the 18th century, Bologna and Naples also had their own outstanding achievements. Thanks to the masters of the Renaissance, Venice was in the 17th century a high school for artists from other cities in Italy and all of Europe in general, who studied here Veronese and Tintoretto, Titian and Giorgione. These are, for example, Johann Lis and Nicola Rainier, Domenico Fetti, Rubens and Bernardo Strozzi.
The 18th century begins with such artists as Andrea Celesti, Piero Negri, Sebastiano Ricci, Giovanni Battista Piazzetta. The most characteristic expression of his originality is given by the paintings of Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, Antonio Canal and Francesco Guardi. The magnificent decorative scope of Tiepolo's works is vividly expressed in his monumental frescoes.
Bologna, with its convenient links to Lombardy, Venice and Florence, is the center of Emilia, the only city in this region to have nominated outstanding masters in the 17th and 18th centuries. In 1119, the oldest university in Europe with a renowned faculty of law was founded here, the spiritual life of the city significantly influenced the Italian painting of the 18th century.
The most attractive are the works of Giuseppe Maria Crespi, especially the series "Seven Sacraments of the Church" executed in 1712. The painting school of Bologna has a European artist in the person of Crespi. His life dates back half to the 17th and half to the 18th century. As a pupil of Carlo Chignani, who in turn studied with Francesco Albani, he mastered the academic language of art that had distinguished Bolognese painting since the time of Carracci. Crespi has visited Venice twice, teaching himself and inspiring others. Especially Pianzetta, it seems, remembered his works for a long time.
Bolognese painting of the early 18th century, different from that of Crespi, is represented by Gambarini. The cold color and drawn clarity, the attractive and anecdotal content of his paintings make him, in comparison with the strong realism of Crespi, more likely to be attributed to the academic school.
In the person of Francesco Solimena, Neapolitan painting had its representative recognized throughout Europe. In Roman painting of the 18th century, a classic tendency manifests itself. Artists such as Francesco Trevisani, Pompeo Girolamo Batoni and Giovanni Antonio Butti are examples of this. The 18th century was the century of Enlightenment. Aristocratic culture in all areas in the first half of the 18th century experienced a brilliant heyday of the late Baroque, manifested in court festivals, magnificent operas and princely deeds.
The era of the Baroque is called the 17th century in Italian art. This style, which has become one of the dominant in European painting, is characterized by a sensual full-blooded perception of the world, dynamism of artistic decisions. With particular completeness, he revealed himself in large-scale urban planning, architectural and picturesque ensembles. The diversity of Italian art is determined by the diversity of local artistic traditions, but, as in the Renaissance, the image of a person remains the focus of artists.
Pietro da Cortona, an architect and artist, went down in art history as the author of the famous series of paintings that adorned the palaces of Rome and Florence. His composition "The Return of Hagari" is an excellent example of the easel painting of the master who sought to give the Baroque style an almost classicistic severity of the solution.
The heyday of the Baroque style is associated with the work of the Neapolitan Luca Giordano, who worked in different cities of Italy and influenced many artists. The dynamics of movement and inner pathos inherent in his works were especially fully revealed in the altar images, in the cycles of monumental-decorative canvases and wall paintings. The brushes of this outstanding master in the collection of the Museum include several works that allow us to judge the scale of his talent. These are canvases on allegorical, evangelical and mythological subjects - "The Punishment of Marsyas", "The Marriage at Cana of Galilee", "The Torment of St. Lawrence ". The best of them, without a doubt, is the composition "Love and Vices Disarm Justice".
The Neapolitan school, marked by its uniqueness of development, is presented with several works. Politically, the Viceroyalty of Naples was ruled by the Spanish crown, which left its mark on the development of art. The painting by Bernardo Cavallino "The Expulsion of Iliodorus from the Temple", in which academic traditions were uniquely refracted, and the dramatic works of Andrea Vaccaro ("Maria and Martha") and Domenico Gargiulo ("The Transfer of the Ark of the Covenant by King David to Jerusalem") testify to the diversity of artistic searches within individual schools.
The Baroque style gave a powerful impetus for the flourishing of landscapes, still life, genre paintings in their unique national Italian version.
At the turn of the 17th-18th centuries, art faces the task of overcoming academicism, which has turned into a set of abstract formulas. In Bologna, this stronghold of the academic tradition, Giuseppe Maria Crespi, skillfully using the play of chiaroscuro, decides in a new way religious ("The Holy Family") and mythological subjects ("Nymphs disarming cupids"), filling them with a living human feeling. Genoese Alessandro Magnasco, who worked in Milan, Florence, Bologna, relying on the pictorial traditions of the 17th century, developed romantic tendencies. The features of the grotesque are inherent in his unusual compositions written with a nervous moving brushstroke with scenes from the life of monks and itinerant actors ("Landscape with the Monks", "Meal of Nuns", "The Learned Magpie"). And even the life-affirming mythological theme of "Bacchanalia" as interpreted by the master is filled with a feeling of deep melancholy. The artist created this canvas in collaboration with Clemente Spera, the author of the architectural ruins.
The period of a new upsurge falls on the 18th century, when the Rococo style was established on Italian soil, the features of which color the works of different genres - a portrait (Sagrestani "Portrait of a Man", Luigi Crespi "Portrait of a Girl with a Basket of Flowers"), depictions of scenes of everyday life (imitator Longhi " Meeting of the procurator with his wife "), pictures on plots from ancient history and mythology (Crozato "The Finding of Moses", Pittoni "The Death of Sofonisba", Sebastiano Ricci "The Centurion before Christ"). The last bright period in the history of Italian art is associated with Venice, which in the 18th century brought forward a whole galaxy of painters of the highest level. A special place among them is rightfully occupied by Giambattista Tiepolo, an outstanding painter of his time, a recognized master of monumental and decorative painting, who received numerous orders from European countries. His brush belongs to the altar composition "Madonna and Child with Saints", as well as freely executed sketches "Death of Dido" and "Two Saints".
In the section of the 18th century, of great interest are the works of the Roman painter Panini (Benedict XIV Visits the Trevi Fountain), who, in the genre of landscapes with motifs of ruins, was the predecessor of the Frenchman Hubert Robert, so highly esteemed in Russia.
In Venice, whose enchanting beauty did not leave anyone indifferent, a special direction of landscape painting was formed - the image of the city with its palaces, canals, squares filled with a motley picturesque crowd. The paintings of Canaletto, Bernardo Bellotto, Marieschi, belonging to the genre of architectural lead, fascinate with the illusory precision of the image, while the chamber works of Francesco Guardi, called Capriccio landscapes, do not so much reproduce real views as offer the viewer's attention a certain poetic image of the city.
Gianantonio Guardi, unlike his younger brother Francesco, gained fame as a master of compositions with figures on biblical, mythological and historical themes. The exhibition presents his painting "Alexander the Great at the body of the Persian king Darius", recognized as a true masterpiece of the master. In the age of carnival and the brilliant flowering of music, masterfully using the language of texture and color, Guardi creates an unforgettable pictorial symphony, permeated with the living movement of human feeling. On this high note, the period of the greatest flowering of Italian art, which began with the Renaissance, ends.
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